Sunday, January 11, 2015

Day 38 and still a little better

As suggested things were just a bit better today than yesterday. Whether or not this is due to an improvement in conditions or the fact that we are getting better at skiing rain crust remains and open question but you can't argue with the fact that skiing today (for us at least) was a bit better.

On the way to the hill it was -8 and -6 driving back. During the day up the hill I saw temps of maybe -3 which seemed a bit colder on the face for some reason, so things were warmer although they never got to plus temps. Best of all there was no real wind (even up Polar Peak) so it remained reasonably warm all day. We had no new snow overnight although the boards were claiming 5 cms in 24 hours where I guess most of it fell during the day yesterday. It was overcast and viz came and went all day. The base was 142 cms and Lynda's journal (probably the most authoritative  document on the subject) confirms that the base at this time of the year is usually between 50 and 100 cms above where we are.

Crowds were pretty light as is usually the case on the first weekend after the Christmas holiday although there were quite a lot of kids groups around. We went to the Old Side to see what was what.

The morning was spent looping through New Lift Line (nice soft bumps) Gulch (closed so a bit technical) Lower Kangaroo (unskied unbroken rain crust - even more fun) Cedar Ridge (actually pretty good tracked skiing) King Fir ( a bit crusty with a blue ice patch in the middle) Boom Ridge (very technical crusty bumps with apologies to the group that came down after me obviously think it looked rather better than it was) and of course Boomerang which was a bit hard and bumpy but ok skiing as long as you paid attention. Some of these were skied several times.

Very late morning we went over to the New Side and even the drop via Lift Line from Timber top the White Pass load had improved in the warming conditions. We looped Polar Peak (very poor light but ok wind sift under the Grand Pappa Bear chute) and then ran to base via Alpha Centauri which like yesterday was the best skied in soft snow on the hill. Last loop before a very late lunch was Polar Peak again where the light was now much better and then Decline which was starting to ski soft with a bit of crust.

After lunch I just kept banging in 30 minute laps of the big three (Skydive, Stag Leap and Decline) which were great soft skiing but with some rather crusty bits particularly in Stag Leap. My view is that things were getting a little more easy all over with the crust softening but still a lot of challenging skiing where the crust was unbroken. Last run of course was Skydive which skied almost like usual in the tracked up crust that we have beaten in over the past few days.

So another good day at the hill with the ungroomed starting to repair and the off piste skiing good if you have the skill and are prepared to make the effort. Finally anyone easily offended please do not follow this link. I can only think that this has been put together by a blog follower who knows me well and I have my suspicions who it was - Shannon. Worth pausing some of the scenes to make sure you can read the sub titles which reflect my view on so many things. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQFaAgFXVAM

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